Ms Cottone is currently Ph.D. candidate in international public law and international relations at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). She has a degree in Law and is specialised in the international protection of human rights and the law of the sea. In her academic research she adopts an integral approach to protect and guarantee individual rights focused on reinforcing interstate cooperation on security and governance of human mobility as a fundamental measure to combat transnational crime.
Since August 2021 she is Research Officer for the IOM's COMPASS Programme based at IOM Headquarters, Geneva and covering 14 countries (Afghanistan, Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Tunisia and Sudan). Prior to this, she supported the International Migration Law Unit (IML) at IOM Headquarters, Geneva. In November 2018, she has joined the Libya mission of IOM as Research Officer, establishing and coordinating the Research and Policy Programme. With IOM she worked also in West Africa being based in Niger, working on preventing irregular migration and supporting awareness raising campaigns against radicalization and violent extremism. In the Horn of Africa in Djibouti, she managed IOM Mixed Migration program and the Yemeni crisis response. She is former Associate Expert for the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), with which she served in Algeria and at Headquarters in Turin and Rome, focusing on security, counter terrorism and transnational organized crime and human mobility. Cottone worked on refugee protection with UNHCR in Spain.
Out of the United Nations system, Linda served the Italian government through legal advisory and research on social policies for the integration of regular migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, as well as victims of trafficking in persons.